


Be All My Sins Remembered

by Graywand



Series: Agents Pines series [3]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M, Fear Demons, Fugitives, Mystery, New Mexico, Revenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4849922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graywand/pseuds/Graywand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dipper and Pacifica were supposed to be going on their honeymoon, a magical time in any newly-married couple's life. But the supernatural was never limited to Gravity Falls, and they run into something. Something that feeds off a person's fears. They're the only ones that can stop it. That is, if it doesn't get to them first. Sequel to It's Hour Come Round At Last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Only Thing We Have To Fear...

**Author's Note:**

> Implied sexual contact and the ending is a bit gruesome. Those uncomfortable with either are advised to avoid this.

"Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not..."

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,  _Hyperion_

Chapter One

The Only Thing We Have To Fear...

_Dead End Flats, New Mexico, United States of America._

Dipper Pines giggled as his wife wrestled him into the hotel bed, practiced fingers going for every ticklish spot she could reach.

"You," he said through his giggles, "are bad."

"I know," she said with a smirk, continuing to go for his armpits. "Yet you keep me around, I wonder why that is?"

"Yes," he said, grabbing her arms, and rolling her suddenly under him, "I wonder why that is?"

He leaned in and kissed her softly, looking into the ice-blue eyes that even now still wanted to make him melt into a puddle. Those blue eyes stared back at him, mirroring the unabashed adoration, lust, and anticipation in his own eyes.

"Let's explore that," Dipper said, as he moved into her. She shuddered, her nails digging into his back as she arched into him, moaning. "Shall we?"

* * *

An interminable time later, precisely how long was a fact that Pacifica neither knew nor cared to find out; her blonde hair was matted to her head with sweat as her husband rolled off her and cuddled her.

"You," she said, breathing heavily and sporting a goofy grin on her face, "Certainly know how to treat a girl on her honeymoon."

Dipper smiled smugly. "I do don't I?" He made a show of cleaning his knuckles on his chest. "Of course, we Pines men have a reputation of pleasing our many lovers so-"

Pacifica punched him playfully in the chest. There weren't any other girls of course, but Dipper enjoyed that game as much as she did. Granted, their choice of honeymoon didn't have them staying at a luxury hotel being waited on hand and foot. But while that was nice, she didn't  _need_  it. The only ingredients a successful honeymoon required was the spouses and plenty of alone time. In the spirit of that truth, rather than being on their way to one of the usual honeymoon destinations, they'd opted to try for something else. They had found an article online outlining what it called the "perfect road trip across America." They'd read it, and found it would take two to three months to complete.

They'd had to think about it…for about five seconds. They were due to report to Washington, D.C. to begin their training as agents for the Special Branch after Thanksgiving. Which gave them about three months to attempt something like this. If worst came to worst, they'd stop in D.C. and wait for the others to show up, even if it meant missing out on their last Thanksgiving dinner with the family.

Right now they were in New Mexico (which, despite its name, was a full member state of the United States of America). They intended to see Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, and even, if it was open, the Trinity site, where the first nuclear detonation in human history had been carried out.

It should be an interesting several days.

At the moment though, Dipper was lying there looking a bit too full of himself. She made to climb on top of him, mentally sighing with relief that she'd taken her pill. Neither one of them was ready for children. Yet.  _Maybe,_  she thought to herself with an evil smirk,  _it's time to make him beg for a change._

_Six hours later_

Dipper Pines's eyes fluttered awake, smiling softly at the feel of his wife's naked body settled against hers. She snored softly, eyes closed as her head rested on his chest. It was a feeling he could never tire of. Not really. They'd been together a long time, intimately so for over two years; and even on nights when one, the other, or both weren't in the mood, they still sought comfort from the other's presence. Neither one of them had really stated this to the other, but he didn't think either of them could really get restful sleep without the other being there. On the rare nights when neither one of them were able to climb out their windows, slip down the sidewalk and sneak into each other's bed, getting to sleep took forever and had been really more stressful than relaxing.

Which had kind of defeated the purpose of sleep.

_You_ , he thought, looking at his wife,  _are the steady rock beneath my feet._

He almost drifted off to sleep when the piercing sound of a man's terrified scream cut through the night.

The bed creaked as Pacifica stirred next to him.

"Dipper," she said, concern burning the tiredness in her voice. "Is something wrong?"

"I heard someone-"

"Someone help me, please! Oh, God!" A terrified male voice echoed through the room, causing Dipper's words to die in his throat.

Time stood still as Dipper and Pacifica looked at each other, every reason for doing nothing more than calling 911 hovered in the air between them. They were technically government agents (and they were armed), but they were  _provisional_  agents, who haven't even attended formal training yet. They had no idea if the person calling for help was under attack, or by who or why.

They knew those things and didn't care. Individually or as a couple, they couldn't ignore that call for help. Not and remain who they were. Besides, they had far more experience than two seventeen-year-olds should to fall back on.

Less than five minutes later, the door to the hotel room burst open and the hastily dressed couple, (official, government-issued) M4s at the ready rushed out into the desert air, and down the stairs to the parking lot below. Without words, the two of them moved quickly silently, covering each other's back and flanks as they moved into the patch of desert behind the hotel the cry for help had come from.

Without missing a beat, they switched on their weapon lights, the blue-white beams of LED light panning over the darkened desert ground as they stalked silently forward, searching for any sign of someone under attack. Or anything out of the ordinary.

There was nothing. Nothing but the sound of cars from the road behind him.

Pacifica's light jerked to get his attention and Dipper followed the light to see a large trench dug out of the ground in front of them. Dug out of the ground by uncounted millennia of water actions, it was dark, quiet…and the perfect place for something like what they'd heard.

"We move forward," he whispered furtively. "Find a path to the bottom, if there is one."

Pacifica nodded. And the two pushed forward silently into the dark.

Dipper scanned his light over the bottom of the desert trench. It was covered in a thick carpet of rocks ranging in size from pebbles to the size of a person's head.

"Dipper," Pacifica whispered. "We can get down over there." His gaze followed where she was pointing with her light, and he saw a dirt slope that ran down to bottom.

Dipper motioned with his head, and the two Pines moved quickly and silently to the rocky floor below.

"Do we split up?" Pacifica whispered.

As he looked at her, shocked at the cliché movie line she'd just sprouted, Paz shot back a withering look. "We need to cover both ends of this trench quickly. We can't do that if we stay together."

Dipper sighed. Splitting them up at a time like this went against every rule in the book, but Pacifica was right. If someone needed their help, they needed to find him as quickly as possible.

"Go," Dipper sighed, even as his heart began to race. "You head south, I'll head north. Either of us finds anything we holler, got it?"

Pacifica nodded, and brought her rifle up, checked the magazine, and jogged south.

* * *

Dipper picked through the rocks as he moved north, his stomach in knots. Every instinct was telling him that splitting up in the middle of a dark trench in a situation full of unknowns was a recipe for disaster.  _That would be true even I wasn't married to the person I just split off from_ , he thought to himself.

Still, he  _was_  married to Pacifica, and the thought of finding his wife dead on the rocky floor kept dancing in and out of his head.

_I wish we'd thought to take radios_ , he thought sullenly.  _We have M4s and M9s, why the hell didn't we bring radios? Come to think of it, who brings military-grade weapons on their_  honeymoon,  _for fuck's sake?_

He felt something wet and crunchy under his shoes.

He tensed, terror sneaking up his spine. He stepped back gingerly, bringing his rifle up slowly.

Illuminated in the light was a blood covered, severed human hand lying on a red-stained sandstone rock.

_We're too late_ , he thought, swallowing the lump in his throat. He brought his rifle up and panned ahead.

The rest of whoever they were looking for was lying in a pile of tissue and bone against the right-hand side of the ravine.

"Oh, my-" Dipper said as he fought the urge to throw up. "Pax!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, as the wind picked up behind him, drowning out his words. "Get over here!"

"Coward," a voice said from the wind around him.

Dipper wheeled about, rifle up. "Who said that?! Is anyone there?!"  _Maybe it was my imagination._

"Coward," the voice responded in a mocking tone that echoed off the trench walls.

"Who's there?" He growled,

"I am," a mocking sing-songy voice said from behind him and he wheeled around…and almost dropped his rifle in shock.

Sitting on a rock was a raccoon puppet.

An old one, with matted, dark-grey fur, and black, lifeless eyes like a doll's eyes. Eyes that nine year earlier had bored into him in a dark room when he was eight.

"Wh-," Dipper whimpered, memories of that horrifying July day when he was eight years old, filling him. "How?"

"Oh," the voice said as the puppet moved. "There were so many interesting fears locked in that brain of yours. It took me awhile to choose one. You know," it said, as the puppet hopped off its perch to march towards him. "You're really a hypocrite. Expecting your wife to dump all her fears on you and you're too scared to tell her that this form terrifies you. Imagine how Pacifica will react when she realizes she married a coward after all. Most people don't like cowardly partners. They don't want them in their lives, they don't want them in their beds, and they certainly don't want to  _marry_  them."

The thing before him smirked. "Normally, once I take the form of a person's worst fear I do what I did to the lump of meat and bone behind you. But I think I'll take amusement watching as your wife realizes just what she married. When she leaves you in disgust, and your heart shatters forever, then I will come. And compared to that, ending up a pile of tissue and bone will be a mercy." The puppet cocked it's head to one side.

"Until then," he said simply, and the puppet leaped forward.

* * *

Pacifica Pines picked her way stealthily southwards to the other end of the trench, the wind picking up behind her as she panned her rifle and it's light every which way, fighting hard to keep the knots out of her belly. She understood Dipper's objection to them splitting up. In point of fact, she agreed with him. But they didn't have a choice. If someone did need their help, and that someone was still out there, they needed to find him. Problem was, with the wind picking up, she didn't think one of them could hear the other.

"AAAHHHHHHHH!" A loud, terrified yell was barely audible over the wind, but she didn't need to hear it clearly to know who it was.

_Oh, my God._  "Dipper!" She shouted before she could stop herself as she tore back down the trench.

A subjective eternity later, Pacifica rounded the corner and her desperate run came to a screeching halt as her heart seemed to break free of its mountings and come crashing down into her stomach.

A human being had been ripped apart here, as though by a giant wolf. The ground and walls had been strewn with blood.

"Oh, God," she whispered, eyes glistening with tears as she felt her heart begin to break one piece at a time. "Dipper. No."

She heard ragged breathing up in the darkness, and for a second she froze there. Before soul-deep anger and rage exploded through her being to mix with her grief as her hand tightened around her rifle's barrel.

The thing that had torn her husband to pieces and made her a widow at seventeen was still out there.

It was time for it to die.

She bought her rifle forward, muscles quivering with rage and the desire to make someone pay…only for it to fall on wide, terrified, eyes, brown pupils shrunken to little dots in his sclera. Eyes she would have recognized anywhere. And the person they belonged to was still breathing

"Dipper!" She shouted, and despite the carnage around her, she smiled manically as she rushed forward to him.

She kneeled over him, checking him over desperately. He was covered in blood, and she realized, horror trickling down her spine, none of it was his.

"Dipper," she said softly, soothingly, the way he always spoke to her at times like this, "it's alright, love. Talk to me. I'm here. I'll always be here."

His eyes went over to her, and for a moment they seemed to stare right through before they seemed to refocus.

"P-P-Pax?"

"It's me," she said, and she felt Dipper's arms come around her as he buried his head in her shoulder. She could feel her husband's tears soaking into her shirt. In another life, she would have reacted to the fact that blood was getting all over her clothes. But that was another life, and the only thing the new Pacifica cared about was her husband was alive to  _get_  blood all over her clothes.

She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. And looked around her.

_What_ , she thought, even as she tightened her grip around Dipper.  _Happened here_?

 


	2. Nor The Battle To the Strong

For now we see through a glass, darkly."

-I Corinthians 13:12

Chapter Two

Nor The Battle To the Strong…

_University of New Mexico Hospital, Albuquerque, New Mexico_

Pacifica sat in Dipper's hospital room, watching as her husband slept in his bed, chest rising and falling peacefully under the sedatives. She reached over and brushed a bang out of his face before fussing over his pillow. It was the only way to keep herself from going stir-crazy. The past twenty-four hours had been stressful to say the least.

Dipper and her were airlifted the University of New Mexico's main hospital in Albuquerque. Initially, they'd been under arrest by the Bernalillo County Sheriff's deputies who'd responded to her 911 call. She'd expected that. You can't be found at the scene of a person who's been torn to giblets without being at least detained. But the combination of their federal agent status and the fact that rounds had not been fired from either of their weapons was enough to get them released.

Also due to the supernatural nature of this case and the fact that under the terms of the Gravity Falls Act passed by Congress that allowed their recruitment into the Special Branch, this case formally fell under the Special Branch's jurisdiction.

Her and Dipper's honeymoon was over: they were both formally recalled to active duty and placed in charge of this investigation.

"Pax?" Dipper murmured, eyes fluttering awake.

"Dipper," she said, a smile breaking out on her face. "You're awake."

Her husband gave a ragged sigh. "How long was I out?"

"Twelve hours," Pacifica responded, sighing, the knots of pain and fear from that night coming back. "You had to be sedated. You were incoherent, struggling to get away from the medics. As your legal next-of-kin I authorized it myself." Pacifica brushed the side of her husband's face.

"What's been happening while I was out?"

"Well," she said, "you won't be surprised that we were under arrest for ten of those hours."

That part was the hardest. Sitting in the Bernalillo County Detention Center while her husband was in the hospital as Sheriff's deputies and the New Mexico State Police combed the area and searched their hotels for any sign that they were involved in foul play. Once they were cleared of suspicion and Powers had…clarified their status in the investigation, she'd been released and the guards on Dipper's hospital room had been withdrawn. She'd rushed over to his side two hours earlier and hadn't left it since.

"I'm not surprised," Dipper said, "it was the right call. It's the call either of us would have made in their place."

Pacifica nodded. "True enough. At any rate, we were cleared of suspicion and released. It also shouldn't come as a surprise that Powers cancelled our leave. And, due to the nature of this case, placed us in charge of the investigation. It's your call whether or not to rely on the local LEOs or call in Wendy and the others."

Dipper sighed, leaning back in his bed and closing his eyes. For a moment, Pacifica thought he'd passed out again, but then he opened her eyes. "No, let's get up to speed on what's going on first."

She looked at the manila folder behind her on the desk, and back to her husband. Dipper looked like death warmed over, in a hospital gown with an IV sticking out of his arm. Being hospitalized for severe stress did that to people. But for a few horrifying seconds last night, the most horrifying seconds of her life, leaving anything she experienced in Gravity Falls to shame, she thought she'd lost her husband in the most brutal manner possible. She wanted to get him out of the hospital and cleaned up.

More importantly she wanted to know what happened.

_Three hours later_

Rescuing Dipper from the clutches of the UNM hospital had taken longer than anticipated. Doctor Garcia, the attending physician, insisted that he eat and eliminate first before she let him go. As a result, it was five when they were finally checking into an Albuquerque Motel 6.

She closed the door behind her and turned to face Dipper.

"All right, Dipper," she said mid-turn "tell me what-" only to find herself abruptly tugged by her right arm into a massive hug.

"Pax," her husband whispered thickly in her ear. "Oh, Pax I thought I'd never see you again."

Her firm, wifely demand to know the truth flew from her mind as she hugged him back. "I thought I'd never see you again. When I got there, all I saw was a torn up body and I thought-" her words died in a lump in her throat, and she buried her face in his shoulder. Part of her needed this reassurance, even now, that her Dipper was still alive. She could feel Dipper's hands through her long blonde hair, as she clung to the reassuring presence of her husband and best friend.

"I love you," she said after a moment.

"I love you, too," he whispered back. "So much."

She pulled her face up and looked at him. "Dipper, what happened out there?"

Dipper sighed. "When the wind picked up," Dipper said, visibly swallowing, "something came at me. A creature that claimed to be the one that tore apart the John Doe we were trying to help."

"Raymond Davila," Pacifica said immediately, gesturing with the manila folder in her hand. "His identification came back from the coroner's office while you were out." Dipper made to take the folder, but Pacifica abruptly dropped it back to her side. "Go on," she prompted firmly.

"Pacifica," Dipper began darkly, "give me the-"

"No," Pacifica's denial cut across his, backed by all her anger, pain and fear. "Not until you tell me what happened. Those few moments I thought you had been torn to shreds were the worst of my life. I heard you breathing out in the darkness and I thought you were whatever creature had killed you. I came  _this close_ ," she said, touching her thumb and forefinger together, "to putting a 5.56 NATO round in your own brain and murdering you myself. You are going to tell me what happened after you got to Davila's body  _right goddamn now_ ," she finished, eyes blazing.

She was more concerned than angry. Dipper was going to want to bury himself in his work to avoid what happened, and she wasn't about to indulge that at the moment.

Neither Pines had gotten where they were by being shy and retiring, and neither liked to back down when challenged, even by each other. For a long moment, the two of them stood as though rooted to the hotel floor, fists balled as they glared at each other. Their eyes bored into each other. No matter how mad they got at each other, however, they knew that the other would always have their back.

Pacifica knew Dipper knew that. She'd fought beside him, made love to and been made love to by him, married him, proudly took his surname for her own. Just as he'd fought for  _years_  to help Pacifica deal with her issues, she was not about to betray that trust by letting him get away with the same thing he'd fought to stop her from doing for so long.

She saw that realization come to Dipper's eyes, and he swallowed visibly. He sat down on the hotel bed and sighed, tapping the bed with his right hand.

Pacifica took the signal for what it was and sat down next to him, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"It was a demon," he said after a moment. "It was what I belief Grunkle Ford would classify as a 'fear demon,' a demon that takes the form of one's greatest fears before it kills you. I don't know what form it took when it killed Mister Davila. It took the form of my greatest fear and taunted me, claiming it wanted to expose me as a coward and destroy our marriage before it killed me. And then," he swallowed, visibly shaking, "and then it threw me into the pile and made me relive…" he swallowed.

"What form did it take?" she asked, despite wanting to vomit everything she ever ate at the thought of what that creature did to him. "What did it make you relive?"

She thought back through everything she told him about what had happened in Gravity Falls prior to them becoming friends. Was it Gideon nearly tearing his tongue out with lamb shears, the time Bill Cipher took over his body and forced his soul to possess a sock puppet?

"I," he sighed, averting his gaze, "it's stupid," he murmured. "Well, it's not stupid."

Pacifica's eyes widened at the notion that Dipper hadn't shared everything with her after all.

Then she looked at him, he was trembling, all over, and it was obvious he was reliving something that had shattered him to the core once. Something that, to him, at least, he didn't feel like he could share even with her.

"Dipper," she said softy, taking his trembling hand, and kissing it like he'd kissed her. "Baby. Please you can tell me. You know you can."  _You took care of me all these years_ , she thought desperately,  _let me take care of you. Please_.

"It was a puppet. A raccoon puppet."

A giggle that she immediately regretted escaped her mouth before she could stop it. She'd had a raccoon puppet named Ricky when she was little. She used to take him on epic imaginary adventures in the backyard when she was little.

She used to cuddle him tight between the ages of ten and twelve as she was slowly broken to the power of that damn bell. Ricky was gone, along with Northwest Manor, and her father. Either destroyed and shredded in the crossfire or deliberately incinerated and pulverized with the remains of the manor afterwards; or executed via use of a three drug protocol that rendered someone unconscious before shutting down all striated muscles and cardiac function.

Dipper however had clearly had a very different relationship with a raccoon puppet, and her face flushed with shame as Dipper yanked his hand out of hers.

"It's not funny," he bit out, glaring at her.

"I'm sorry," she said as she slapped herself. "What happened?"

Dipper sighed. "A ghost possessing a raccoon puppet tried to kill Melanie and me when we were eight years old."

* * *

Dipper sighed, his stomach feeling like butterflies with razor-edged wings were fluttering about in his stomach. Part of him wanted to do anything rather than talk about this. Four years as boyfriend and girlfriend, and a couple months as husband and wife, and he'd never once broached this topic to her. Not that it seemed stupid, but it seemed to pale in comparison to everything she went through.

"Why haven't you told me about this?" His wife said after a moment. "Particularly because people and/or things have tried to kill you since and you've told me about those."

"You lived in fear of your parents every day of your life," he blurted out immediately. "Compared to that one incident, in my head I always thought that I'd be seen as shamelessly bucking for sympathy." A lump materialized in his throat. "We were just little kids I don't understand, I've never understood why-"

He was cut off by his wife's embrace.

"Oh, my sweet Dipper," Pacifica whispered in her ear. "Of course I understand." She cupped her face in his hands. "But what you've been telling me and Mabel for four years applies to you as well. It's not your fault. Nothing that happened to you and Melanie is the fault of either of you." She kissed him softly.

"And the day will  _never_  come when I let a demon decide my relationship with you." She favored him with one of the slow smiles that had made his knees quiver when he was twelve years old.

"Now, husband mine," she said softly, "go take a shower. Then we'll go through this," she said, gesturing with the manila folder containing the background brief on Davila, "go through the journals and we'll decide our next move."

* * *

Pacifica sighed, staring at the ceiling as the sound of running water from the hotel bathroom filled the air.

_We were_ supposed _to be on our honeymoon_ , she thought angrily.  _Now a man is dead, and a demon has made it clear it intends to murder the man I love._

It was like Gravity Falls all over again, even more than the recent Briarwood crisis. There were some differences. They weren't children anymore, for one, and they were on the same side this time. No matter what that thing said.

_And I'm not a Northwest anymore_ , she thought,  _I'm a Pines. And in a way I've been a Pines since that night, when the boy who would become my husband found me clicking a flashlight on and off as I waited for the ghost of that lumberjack my great-great grandfather betrayed to come and put me out of my misery._

She'd been fortunate that Dipper had come along to bring her out of her suicidal funk. And the rest as they say was history. Bill Cipher was gone. Gideon was marginalized to the point of irrelevance in the mental institution he was confined too. The Northwest's power was shattered forever, Preston Northwest dead.

Priscilla was number two in the U.S. Marshals Top Fifteen Most Wanted and the FBI's Most Wanted list and had been on the run for the past four years, but not before she'd been forced practically at gunpoint to sign over guardianship to Shannon.

Unfortunately, she was proving to be a slippery bitch. There'd been more than enough evidence to suggest she'd handled the logistical side of the army that Preston and Gideon assembled, which was why the terribly overworked federal grand jury in Portland had wasted no time indicting her for treason. Which was why she'd ran.

A wistful smile appeared on her face. Oddly enough it had been a scare regarding her appearance that had kicked off their sex life. An Oakland PD officer had called in what she thought had been Priscilla in disguise near the Oakland Coliseum. As a result, the area had been cordoned off, every school in the area had been placed on lockdown as U.S. Marshals Pacific Southwest Regional Taskforce, FBI-San Francisco and the Oakland PD moved in to scour the area with a fine-toothed comb.

She, Dipper, and Mabel had been caught off guard in their classes by the lockdown alongside everyone else. And even more caught off-guard when U.S. Marshals in full tactical gear had pulled them out of class, rushed them into separate armored vehicles with blacked out passenger-side windows and drove them at full speed, sirens blaring to a safehouse somewhere in San Benito county.

The twin's parents and Shannon however, hadn't been collected yet, and as a result the three fifteen-year-olds were alone, except for the guards, and drunk on an adrenaline high. Mabel, who's own then –boyfriend had still been in lockdown, had responded by turning on the stereo to full blast and running through every exercise routine she knew in an effort to bleed off excess energy. Dipper and Pacifica had wandered into one of the adjoining bedrooms and, despite the rushed awkwardness, had thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

It had still had all the makings of a colossal error in judgment. Dipper hadn't worn protection and she hadn't gone on the pill yet. It had occurred under the influence of adrenaline.

In the end, they'd only spent two days out there as it turned out to be a false alarm. And they'd both breathed a sigh of relief when her period arrived on schedule. The cat had gotten out of the bag though, and even during that tense wait they'd continued experimenting, albeit with protection.

Though there was still a small, lingering part of her that had wished she'd fallen pregnant, regardless of the havoc it would have wreaked on their personal lives.

"What you thinking about?" Dipper's voice said from behind her. She abruptly realized that the shower had stopped and Dipper, wrapped in his bathrobe was standing behind her.

"Thinking about what a hash our honeymoon has become," Pacifica responded. Before turning to face him, "and of our first time."

Dipper chuckled. "How could I forget. We'd been dancing around the issue since our birthday, and wasn't expecting us to move quite so fast. Of course," he said jokingly. "I already proved myself a master lover who-"

Her husband dodged the pillow thrown at his head. "Don't get too full of yourself," she growled, even as a smile appeared on her face.

Dipper smirked and muttered something along the lines of, "It's not like you don't brag. Or enjoy yourself."

_That's true_ , she thought wistfully.  _I do enjoy myself. A lot._

"At any rate," he continued, "let's look at the brief on Davila."

Pacifica handed Dipper the manila folder. "I didn't do much more than read his name. I was a little preoccupied at the time."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Dipper said softly.

"I'm sorry  _you_  had to go through that," Pacifica said referring to both last night and the incident when he was eight. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Dipper sighed. "Yeah. But when we get home. I want Melanie to be there since she was in it as deep as I was."

Pacifica nodded. "That's fair."

Dipper nodded, and opened the folder.

"Raymond Garcia Davila," he said, "twenty-six years old, born in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Attended New Mexico State University, graduate with a degree in business. He is," then he sighed angrily, " I mean  _was_  married to Jeanette Marcos, age 21. He has a son Lucas, aged two. Woah."

Pacifica turned around. "What?"

"Says here that, he was visiting family in Gravity Falls the summer after he graduated when the Siege broke out, in point of fact he was a witness to the Food Court Massacre."

Pacifica winced. On a day that was already filled with death and destruction, the Food Court Massacre was the worst. The forces assigned to the mall had been part of the initial frontline in the Siege, garrisoned by the Third Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, and the Second Battalion, Fifth Marines. When the fighting withdrawal began, most of them were able to escape, except for Third Battalion's India Company. They'd put up a fight long enough to delay the enemy advance and allow the Second and Third to escape, but in the end had been overrun.

And the thirty surviving Marines and twelve of the surviving civilians had been marched into the food court, lined up against the wall, and shot. The incident had gone down alongside Malmedy, the Wereth 11, Bataan, Palawan, Nueces, and Fort Pillow in the roster of massacres against surrendered American military personnel.

And as near as she (and NCIS) could tell, her father had ordered it personally.

"He was interviewed after the battle by NCIS along with the other survivors who hid in the mall, of course," Dipper said in that half-murmur people who are interested in what they're reading tend to drop into. "His testimony is credited with leading to three convictions." He pulled a thick, stapled stack of paper out and handed it to her. "Here's a copy of his deposition."

She gave it a cursory once-over. She sighed. "What are the odds?"  _We keep running into our past_ , she thought angrily.  _Will it ever let us go?_

_Ever let us go_? Her eyes widened as the realization hit her.

"What are the odds?" She repeated coldly. "What are the odds that someone with a connection to the Siege would end up brutally murdered behind our hotel right when we're there?"

"You think he was killed to lure us out," Dipper responded. It wasn't a question. "I'd thought so, but I couldn't be sure if that what was really going on or it just found out who we were when we got out there and decided we were a target of opportunity."

"After what we just learned? Not a chance in hell," Pacifica responded, getting up and pacing.

"Now the question becomes," she said, "is this thing operating on its own? Or has it been summoned or constrained somehow by a third party to come after us. Come after you. And if so by whom?"

"I think we  _both_  know the answer to that."

"Priscilla," Pacifica growled, balling her fists so hard that her nails cut into her hands. Pacifica wanted to hit something. Or someone. Preferably her. She shook her head, trying to get the red out of her vision. It wasn't working. Her "mother" had worked with her "father" to terrorize her for years, and when she thought she was finally free of them, she has a demon murder an innocent man as a stepping stone to murdering the one person who made her truly happy.

"I," she bit out, pacing, resisting the urge to punch the wall, "am going to kill her with my bare hands. I'm going to take her by the throat, I'm going to rip out her esophagus-"

"Pax!" Dipper shouted, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and forestalling her matricidal rant.

"What!" Pacifica shouted, getting in his face. "That bitch makes my life a living hell, and now she's summoning demons and killing innocent people to get to you. To get to me through  _you_!" Her rage evaporated, replaced by soul-desperate fear and she buried her head in Dipper's shoulder. "I can't lose you! I can't! I don't know how. I don't know how to live without you," she finished softly.

_And to think I was so angry at him a couple months I almost took my ring off and threw at his head_ , she thought,  _some hypocrite I am_.

"I'm not dead yet," he said, echoing her words from a couple months earlier. "And I'm not going anywhere. We'll stop this, together. Just like we always have."

"Come hell or high water."


End file.
